Birdman is a 2014 black comedy film directed by Alejandro Iñárritu Gonzales, co-written by Iñárritu, Nicolás Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris Jr., and Armando Bo.
Subtitled as The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance, Birdman follows Riggan Thomson, a washed up, balding, middle-aged actor who gives up being a Hollywood superhero to produce, direct, and star in a Broadway play. The bulk of the film’s plot focuses on the rehearsals leading up to the play contrasted with subplots involving the characters’ real-life relationships.
For Riggan Thomson, his play’s critical success means much more to him than its financial success even though a lot of money wouldn’t hurt as he has everything (and I do mean everything) riding on this play, including his daughter’s house. But to do something where he can be perceived as a relevant actor and to also separate himself from his better known alter ego Birdman makes it all worthwhile. Besides, the play’s success would offset failures in his personal life.
Where he has no connection with his daughter Sam who is fresh out of drug rehab and runs errands for him around the theater. When she is not smoking weed to escape reality she is zoning out on Twitter and Facebook. His girlfriend Laura? He can relate to the actresses in his play better than he can relate to her. Then there’s Mike Shiner, who is more natural, truthful, and erect as an actor onstage than he is as himself offstage. There’s the all-powerful New York Times art critic Tabitha who is determined to destroy Riggan’s play and the narcissistic generation it stands for. But despite these personal failures, Birdman is always there with Riggan Thomson, tempting him with the life he gave up in Hollywood, reminding Riggan that he has powers nobody can imagine, that he can move things with his mind, and that he can fly. But, most of all, Birdman reminds Riggan that he’s losing his grip on himself and his ability to separate what’s real from what’s not real.
Birdman stars Michael Keaton as Riggan Thomson, Ed Norton as Mike, Naomi Watts as Leslie, Emma Stone as Sam, Andrea Riseborough as Laura, Zach Galifianakis as Jake, and Lindsay Duncan as Tabitha. Birdman is produced by Regency Enterprises, New Regency Pictures, M Productions, Le Grisbi Productions, TSG Entertainment, and Worldview Entertainment. The film’s cinematography is by Emanuel Lubezki, is edited by Douglas Cries and Stephen Mirrione, the music is by Antonio Sánchez. Winning 4 Academy Awards, for direction, cinematography, its screenplay, and also Best PIcture, Birdman earned praise from many major critics and solidified Iñárritu as a cut above most--if not all--of today’s film directors. In this presentation, I will examine Birdman’s key themes and wrap it up with my personal thoughts at the end.
Themes
Truth and dishonesty
Birdman begins in a theater in a kitchen setting with actors sitting around a table rehearsing their lines in a play; this play is based on Raymond Carver’s short story called What We Talk About When We Talk About Love. Riggan Thomson directs and stars in the play and everything--including his daughter’s house--is riding on its success after leaving Hollywood and his superhero character Birdman behind to gain recognition and relevance as a Broadway actor. But with the opening of the play drawing closer, his hope for its success is going down the toilet. Ralph, who plays an important role in the play, is awful but a blessing disguised as a heavy light fixture suspended over the stage falls and hits Ralph on the head and miraculously, Mike Shiner appears out of thin air to save the play. He is the perfect replacement for Ralph.
Truth
Mike--is a natural actor, so natural that he knows his lines without reading them. While rehearsing a love scene with Leslie, he gets an erection to make the scene look more realistic. In fact, he insists on realism to the point of drinking real gin like his character instead of water. Mike is so thoroughly convinced that the make-believe world on the stage is real that he becomes angry with the audience for whipping out their phones to catch him with a hard on.
dishonesty
Yes, Mike has issues but at least he comes across as real when he’s onstage. The same can’t be said for Riggan. As he did playing Birdman, Riggan pretends to be someone else by playing Ed. To make matters worse, he draws a gun on Mike but Mike refuses to act scared when he sees the red plug in the barrel of the fake gun. Subsequently, when Ed shoots himself in the head with the fake gun the audience’s reaction corresponds with Mike’s reaction, meaning that they aren’t convinced that the gun nor the suicide are real.
Truth or dare
Riggan goes over the edge as the real world and his imagination start to overlap. He jumps off of a building and flies to the theater and later, when his housecoat gets caught in a door, he rushes to the theater and finishes the scene in his underwear. The stunned audience shows him their appreciation by whipping out their phones. The video of Riggan in his drawers goes viral on Youtube, getting 100,000 views in only 1 hour!
Reality
Leslie to Mike Shiner: “When you’re up here (on stage) you’re Mr. Truth but out in the real world where it counts you are a fucking fraud!”
Mike and Riggan confuse things that are not real with things that are real. Mike drinks real alcohol on the stage like his character Mel and tries to get Leslie to have real sex in their love scene. Then, there’s Riggan who believes that he can move objects with his mind; he has regular conversations with Birdman; and he imagines himself leaping off the roof of a building and flying like a bird.
The more the play matches Riggan’s own life, the more he becomes like Mike Shiner whom Leslie accuses of being more real onstage than off. For instance, after Mike humiliates Leslie in a love scene, Riggan takes her in his arms, comforts her, and tells her--in an intimate voice--that she is beautiful and talented and that he is lucky to have her in his play. Offstage, though, he has never spoken this way to his girlfriend Laura.
Followers
Birdman is about 2 worlds: the fake world and the real world. And in both worlds, being relevant means everything. Riggan goes from being a nobody to somebody when a video of him running through Times Square in his underwear goes viral on Youtube. And likewise, when Mike gets busted on stage with a hard-on during a rehearsal his video gets 50,000 views!
But to Riggan relevance is doing something artistic that the world will remember; this is why he gives up being Birdman--to be recognized as a good actor. He seeks this recognition and validation from a New York Times critic named Tabitha who hates gimmicks and the popularity he gains on Youtube for running through Times Square in his underwear.
Narcissism
What was the world like before we got here? Man is only 200,000 years old which is like a drop in the bucket compared to Earth which has been around 4.5 billion years. And after we run our course here, Earth will dust itself off, move on, and forget us, like it did the dinosaurs, and all that will remain that we were ever here will be what we leave behind.
Riggan becomes so obsessed with having his own needs met that he ignores the needs of the people in his life. For instance, he busts Sam smoking weed but it is not his fear of her relapsing back to drug addiction but his fear of her creating a distraction for him and his play. In this scene, he tells her “You can’t do this to me” instead of telling her “you can’t do this to yourself.”
Nor does he has time for his girlfriend Laura’s emotional needs after she misses a couple of periods and tells him that she might be pregnant. All that’s important to Riggan is the success and approval of his play.
Novelty
Here today and gone tomorrow. Everything is temporary: marriages, houses, cars. Cars used to be made of steel; today, they’re made of plastic. Houses used to be made of bricks; today, they are made of vinyl. Love. Love used to be for life; today, not anymore. As Mike Shiner says in the film “There’s a douchebag born every minute.”
Take, for instance, Riggans’ play and the scene where his character named Ed catches his wife--played by Leslie--at a motel with another man named Mel played by Mike. Leslie tells Ed that she doesn’t love him anymore and he tells her that he was only trying to be what she wanted him to be. As Birdman, Riggan also tried to be what the public wanted him to be until the public--like Ed’s lover in the play--dumps him and moves on to other superheroes like Iron Man and The Avengers.
Leslie’s character in the play is also a metaphor for Tabitha, the critic. After Ed realizes that he means nothing to Leslie’s character in the play, he turns the gun on himself. Before pulling the trigger, though, Ed’s last words are “I don’t exist” and these last words juxtapose with Sam telling Riggan that he doesn’t exist because he does not have accounts on Facebook and Twitter.
Also, the novelty of Mike getting a real hard-on in his love scene with Leslie transforms what should be a serious scene--Ed catching his wife having sex with another man and Ed committing suicide--into a comedy scene. Again, the physical and emotional disconnection of the audience is stressed here.
Love
Why are we afraid to be ourselves? Why do we strive to be what others want us to be? In everything that we do, we are all seeking acceptance and love, like Riggan who confuses love with admiration and throws a butcher knife at his former wife Sylvia for not liking a film he starred in with Goldie Hawn. Riggan’s violent reaction to rejection in real life parallels Ed’s violent reaction to rejection in the play, who shoots himself after his wife tells him that she doesn’t love him anymore. The public loved Birdman and forgot about Riggan who tried to be what he thought the public wanted him to be like Ed who also tried to be what he thought his wife wanted him to be before he caught her cheating with Mel.
Seeking relevance
Riggan is not alone in feeling disconnected from reality. Sam is invisible to her father who videotapes her birth for future reference instead of experiencing her birth in the moment. Sam is also invisible to others as she overhears Leslie talking about her to Mike in the dressing room. Sam--like her father and Mike--gives up on being a non-person in the real world to be somebody on Twitter and Facebook, the fake world. Leslie also feels disconnected from reality, not knowing whether or not she’s made it as an actress until Laura tells her that she’s “made it.”
Disconnection
And when Riggan shows up at the play in his underwear, the audience is just as disconnected from reality themselves, choosing to see Riggan filtered through their cell phones instead of experiencing him in the moment as he is live and in front of them on the stage; the audience also chooses to see Mike Shiner’s hard on filtered through their phones; and the audience also chooses to see Riggan--as Mel--filtered through their phones after he shoots off his nose!
Conclusion
When I think about this movie overall, I believe that escapism--in its extreme--is a kind of pornography that’s at war with the real world and real human connectivity. Hard to argue when you think of how normal it is to see people standing side by side and yet disengaged and lost in our own portable worlds that we carry around with us, that we prefer using to text rather than to talk, and that we even take to bed with us. A lot of us spend more time trying to impress--and be accepted by--thousands of people on Twitter and Facebook instead of spending real time with the real people in our lives, in the real world, people we can touch and see for ourselves and not artificially through the lens of a camera or phone, instead of allowing these real friendships with real people to wither and die. And is this growing obsession to recreate digital versions of ourselves and the world through social media a sign that we are giving up on the real world? Are we becoming little deformed versions of Riggan Thomson? I’ll leave you to answer these questions for yourself.
Wrap
This is a great movie on a lot of levels starting with the photography made to look like a continuous shot reminiscent of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1948 film Rope. This aesthetic comes from the director’s philosophy that "We live our lives with no editing." Shooting Birdman required precise timing as Riggan moved through the theater and blended with other actors with whom he had to be in perfect sync; 1 misstep would disrupt the entire sequence which actually happened, according to actress Emma Stone who said that she came around a corner too quickly and ruined a six-minute take.
Casting the film’s lead was easy for the director who believed that Michael Keaton’s experiences in comedy, stage, and film invested him with the “emotional range” and everyman charm to flesh out the personality of Riggan Thomson.” Keaton initially thought that the film was making fun of his own career but signed on after he met with the director and discussed it. Ed Norton is perfect as the sarcastic and narcissistic Mike Shiner. Naomi Watts is perfect as Mike Shiner’s flawed, insecure girlfriend Leslie who seeks relevance on and offstage. Actress Emma Stone is perfect as Riggan’s jaded daughter Sam who defines value as having Facebook and Twitter accounts and going viral on Youtube. Andrea Riseborough, Zach Galifianakis, and Lindsay Duncan are also great as Laura, Jake, and Tabitha, respectively.
Birdman costed $17 million to make and made $103.2 million worldwide; Gonzales’ 1st film--Amores Perros--costed $2.4 million to make and made $20.4 million worldwide, proving that you can make high quality, profitable films without breaking the bank if you start with a great script, a great crew, a great director, and a great cast.
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